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Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

I'm long on Uber and Lyft but their approach to billing is lacking.

Uber really should provide some sort of cost breakdown on your previous rides. (They provide quotes, but not itemized receipts.) But at least you can get a sense for how much they charge on their website.

Lyft, hilariously, doesn't tell you how much they charge! At all! What on Earth is their thinking behind that? Is it miles? Minutes? Am I charged based on my Klout score? It's a total mystery to me.

I hate taking cabs, but at least their pricing is 100% transparent.

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Doesn't Uber do that? After each ride, I get an email with the breakdown of the costs of the ride, map of the route taken, average speed, time taken etc.

I think the point being made is that you find out after and there's a lack of upfront information. Personally I'm a huge fan of the map, time stamps, and oddly enough, the rounding down

It's easy to see the pricing breakdown and to estimate the fare in the Uber app. Tap the "type" of Uber (Taxi, uberX, etc) to see the breakdown.

One of the reasons why I've been using Sidecar more lately. You put in your pickup and dropoff locations and are given an estimated donation recommendation (Sidecar let's you pay what you want) before you actually request a pickup. There's a lot to be said for setting expectations like that early.

... which you can do in the Uber app, as well, though of course it's not a pay-what-you-want service, and the fare estimation in the app is just that, an estimation.

It's amusing that various local taxi regulations, which Uber and friends have long decried as being unfair, inefficient, outdated, etc. are pretty much the sole reason taxi pricing is transparent.

> taxi pricing is transparent

Hilarious.

Thank your for your informative and thought-out rebuttal.

Every taxi I've ever ridden in clearly lays out the initial charge, how much distance is included, how much additional distance is charged, how much idle time is charged, and any additional fees.

That's really useful if you know what the distance is to your destination off the top of your head, or know that the driver is taking the shortest route to it. Also useful if the taxi driver actually engages the meter, or doesn't claim that the credit card reader is "broken." The idea that taxi regulations somehow make pricing transparent or predictable is completely divorced from reality.

Failing to engage the meter is easily observed by the passenger. Credit card readers have nothing to do with this discussion, and are clearly just you being whiny. That price list I discussed is posted precisely because the law requires it.

Accepting payment by credit card is one of those regulations taxis in SF find unfair and inefficient, and so flaunt regularly. So, from that perspective, I think it's germane.

I've also had drivers in SF smoke, refuse to give me a ride, and try to charge me extra fees, all of which are, AFAIK, against the law.

None of which has anything to do with the transparency of taxi prices or the influence of the law on such.

> claim that the credit card reader is "broken."

Fortunately, the law protects you again in this case. In NYC (and SF too, I believe), if the credit card machine doesn't work, and the cab driver doesn't tell you before you start the ride, you don't have to pay a dime.

If you've never been ripped off by a cab driver in a strange city, you either haven't traveled very much, or you've led a very charmed life. (Or you have been ripped off, but you didn't realize it.)

I guess the possibility of taking public transportation when in strange cities is off the table?

Not too many strange American cities have public transport worth the name. If your (US) travels mostly take you to Boston and NYC, lucky you!

Not only transparent, but predictable: you don't have to read the fine print on each individual taxi to figure out if this particular fellow is charging you something absurd. That's something Sweden has run into with its deregulation of taxis: http://www.thelocal.se/20120425/40476

The gist of it is that some independent taxi drivers will legally post prices about 20x the going rate. Of course nobody who both knows what they're doing and reads the price will take such a taxi. But the business model / scam is to snag just a handful of clueless rides each day, especially targeting tourists arriving at Stockholm Airport. Then rack up huge profits on a small number of rides. It helps that tourists arriving at the Stockholm airport typically: 1) don't know what the going rate for taxi service is; 2) don't have an intuitive conception of what prices in Swedish Kronor mean; and 3) don't know how to quickly locate and read the posted prices.

Although being Sweden, there's a quick and efficient train from the airport to downtown.

I don't think it's fair to lump all taxi regulations together and then say Uber is decrying regulation. I doubt Uber cares about transparent pricing regulation. They've always shown the fare breakdown on the website and in the app. You can also estimate the fare for locations in the app and website: https://www.uber.com/cities/san-francisco There was some initial complaining about using a phone with GPS to meter the ride, but I think that was just chaff from entrenched interests.

If the initial cost to start a taxi was low enough (i.e. medallions were used to vet the driver and not to protect existing taxi companies [0]), competition might arrive at transparent pricing anyway. Especially with e-hailing where you can be more selective about the cab you choose.

[0] http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/47636506327/the-tyranny-of...

Some of those taxi regulations are easy to implement and generally a good idea. Some of them are merely protectionist schemes designed to maintain an oligopoly.

Er, what? The Uber pricing is listed right there in the app, in the same way that taxi pricing is listed: base fare, per-mile fare, and per-minute fare. And if surge pricing is in effect, there's even an extra tap-through step that tells you what the multiplier and final costs are, and asks you to confirm that it's ok.

There's even a trip cost estimator in the app that you can use by telling it your destination.

When the trip is over, you get an email receipt with the total time and distance with the charges listed, as well as a map with the route drawn.

I'm not sure how you can get more transparent than that. What else are you looking for?

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